With six games left in the 2021 season, Brandon Belt was sitting at 29 home runs. Not only was he going to be the first San Francisco Giants player to crack 30 home runs since Barry Bonds in 2004, but he was going to power the Giants to the World Series.
Then Belt was hit on the thumb while trying to bunt, ending his season. There are lot of what-ifs for the 2021 season, but “What if Lucas Gilbreath didn’t throw a fastball two feet away from his target?” is pretty high on the power ranking. I’m not going to guarantee that Belt would have hit a game-tying home run in the eighth inning of Game 5 against Kenley Jansen, but I’m not going to rule it out, either.
However, we’re not here to talk about the ghosts of contending seasons past. We’re here to talk about Brandon Belt and the ghosts of World Series future. He was excellent for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2023, with a .369 on-base percentage and an .858 OPS. There were 212 players with more than 400 plate appearances in 2023, and Belt’s adjusted OPS was the 19th best. Of the 18 players ahead of him, five of them will be playing in the World Series this year. Seems like that’s not a coincidence. Good hitters help their teams to the World Series.
Except Belt didn’t get a decent contract offer for the 2024 season. His wasn’t a forced retirement like Bonds’, as I’m sure he could have had his pick of minor-league contracts and invitations to spring training, but it was close. Baggs wrote about it in April, and the article name-checked Donovan Solano, who eventually signed with the San Diego Padres and helped them to the postseason with a 112 OPS+. Yet Belt never got that kind of chance. Teams all around the league decided they were better off without him.
Everyone other than the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees were wrong. And while Anthony Rizzo had a fine ALCS and Freddie Freeman is a future Hall of Famer, it’s not like both teams in the World Series are confident in their first base production in the World Series. They’re exempt from this ranking, but they have to be a little curious.
This ranking is for the teams that should feel bad that they didn’t call Brandon Belt in the offseason. It cost them something. It might have cost them a pennant, and they should feel bad about it.
5. Detroit Tigers
Scott Evans is probably the person who benefitted the most from the 2021 Giants’ unexpected season. He became the Tigers’ president of baseball operations and built a roster that enjoyed a surprising, years-early postseason berth. The Tigers were so far out of the picture that they traded a first baseman to the Giants at the deadline. A few weeks later, they had faintly realistic World Series hopes. What a strange sport.
They could have used Belt. Spencer Torkelson is a right-handed first baseman, so even if the Tigers didn’t want a straight platoon, having Belt would have taken a lot of the edge off throughout the season, protecting their young first baseman against the nastiest of same-side pitchers. In the postseason, though, they gave a ninth-inning at-bat with a runner in scoring position to Jace Jung, a young, left-handed pinch-hitter, and it didn’t work out. A plurality of their DH at-bats went toward Justyn-Henry Malloy, which also didn’t work out, at least in the regular season.
They weren’t going to make it much further anyway, but a little Belt goes a long way.
4. Milwaukee Brewers
The Tigers were included because I needed a fifth team, and it’s hard to be too mad at them. Here’s where we start getting into the teams that might have committed malpractice, though.
The Brewers’ weakest position in 2024 was first base, to the point that they finished below the White Sox in Wins Above Average for the position. Their offseason plan was to sign Rhys Hoskins, an all-or-nothing power hitter coming off a season that was lost to injury. It was a good move, in theory. Medium risk, high reward. He hit 26 home runs for the Brewers, although that’s about all he did better than the average first baseman.
It’s hard to penalize the Brewers for not getting Belt over Hoskins at the time, at least not without a crystal ball. But their DH was Gary Sánchez, whose .699 OPS didn’t help much, either. Both Hoskins and Sánchez are right handed, so Belt would have helped them occasionally in the starting lineup, as well as a pinch-hitter off the bench. In the postseason, he wouldn’t have started against Sean Manaea or Jose Quintana, but he definitely would have been a better matchup against Edwin Díaz over Sánchez in the eighth inning of Game 3 of the Wild Card Series.
Belt also could have turkey-tapped Devin Williams in the mound conference before Pete Alonso came up, breaking the ice and reminding everyone that this is supposed to be fun. Williams would have struck Alonso out on three pitches.
3. Kansas City Royals
You can understand why the Royals went with Nelson Velázquez as their DH for most of the season. He’s young, and his .579 slugging percentage in 2023 was more than a little exciting. But he fizzled, and the Royals got less out of the DH position than almost every other team. The Los Angeles Angels were worse, somehow, even though I’m pretty sure Shohei Ohtani was their DH. Maybe he was hurt. I’ll have to look into it.
The Royals also had Vinnie Pasquantino for first base, so they’re another “with the benefit of hindsight” team for Belt, but they had an impressive offseason after a 106-loss season, with the goal being to build a competitive team. Or, if not competitive, at least not helpless. They spent more money than other contenders to build a pitching staff that had a chance, and it got them to the postseason.
You could see how that mentality could have led them to Belt, if only as a left-handed bat. It probably wouldn’t have been the difference, but it wasn’t going to hurt.
2. New York Mets
The Mets needed more left-handed bats in the NLCS. This is not a subjective opinion. They had Brandon Nimmo, who was playing on a compromised foot and trying his best, and they had J.D. Martinez getting starts against Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Evan Phillips. The Mets were far too easy for the Dodgers to plan for, and just one extra left-handed bat could have made the difference.
This is the second time the Dodgers got lucky because Brandon Belt wasn’t available. What a charmed life they lead.
The tricky part here is that Alonso doesn’t need a platoon partner and never has, but between Alonso and Martinez, there was a definite spot for a left-hander who could have absorbed at-bats when the need came up, or someone who could take over in the event of an injury. Let’s say this is a baseball truism and remember it going forward: A right-handed DH and a right-handed first baseman might be even better with an overqualified left-hander behind them.
Do I really think the Mets would have beaten the Dodgers with Belt? No. But I’m just setting up the team that I’m dead serious about. You might say that I’m world serious about this one.
1. Houston Astros
He was right there. You fools. Texas is the size of one of Jupiter’s moons, give or take, but Nacogdoches is just over two hours away from Houston. Heading into the season, though, the Astros’ plan was to hope for good things from Yordan Álvarez (smart) and José Abreu (questionable). The backup plan for both first base and DH was Jon Singleton, a legitimately awesome story for the Astros in the Travis Ishikawa sense.
However, Singleton wasn’t much younger than Belt, and he most certainly did not have a top-20 adjusted OPS in 2023. So while you could forgive the Astros for not calling Belt in the offseason, once it was clear that Abreu wasn’t the answer and needed to be released, that’s when the call should have came.
Instead, the Astros rolled with Singleton. As the trade deadline approached, they had a clear need at the position, and it was a minor shock that it wasn’t addressed.
If you were to draw up the perfect insurance policy for Abreu, who was awful in 2023, it would have gone like this: A reliably productive left-handed hitter who would play on a one-year deal for relatively cheap. He made sense for the Astros from the very beginning, but he definitely made sense once Abreu was designated for assignment.
Singleton got two at-bats in the wild-card round. Jason Heyward got three. There were no hits to be found for any of them.
Belt would have hit the game-winning homer against Beau Brieske in the ninth inning in Game 1. The Astros would have cruised past the Guardians and flummoxed the Yankees, who would be in their own heads about facing the Astros again.
That would have set up Astros vs. Dodgers in the World Series, and it would have taken a real sicko to root for the Astros in that one. Fortunately that’s my audience, and you can dream of Belt doing something special against the Dodgers. We were robbed. All of us were robbed.
Of course, for perspective, one of the players just ahead of that 2023 best-OPS+ ranking was Wilmer Flores. None of these teams would have made the World Series with Flores as their 1B/DH. Veteran players are a fickle beast. It’s just as likely, if not more likely, that ankle gremlins would have kept Belt out of October, if not August or May.
Still, what a glorious dream. While it’s not as obvious as the Twins signing Barry Bonds in 2008, Belt was still a player who could have helped several teams. If the Yankees don’t beat the Dodgers, you’ll know who to blame.
You can also complain about the Yankees, too. What’s the deal with Jazz Chisholm, Jr. at third base? I’ll bet Belt could play there. Just give him that chance. He could pitch a few innings, too.
Most teams can rest easy, though. The Astros definitely should not.
(Top photo of “The Captain”: Lachlan Cunningham / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
